We got trip insurance for the first time ten years ago when we went on a Mediterranean cruise. There were a couple of reasons - it was our first out-of-country trip (except for the Caribbean), and my MIL had Alzheimer's. Our reasoning was that if something happened with MIL either before or during the trip, we'd be covered if we had to cancel. And if something happened to us or our stuff while we were so far away from home, we'd be covered for that, too.

Since then we've gotten insurance for any trip longer than a weekend. We've never had to use it, but it's nice to know that we have it, just in case. It used to seem to be reasonably priced for the number of things that were covered, but for the last couple of trips it seems like it's gotten pretty expensive. I know some of that has to do with the length of the trip and the "quality" of the accommodations. Wwe are going on a Mexican Riviera cruise in April and splurged on a suite, and the insurance was substantially more expensive than for a lowly stateroom.

Donna

We bought travel insurance for our trip to Mexico a few years ago. I'm glad we did as husband ended up in ER for heart related stuff. We ended up getting all our money back.

Did you have to cancel your trip to Mexico? I saw my own doctor last month, and he told me to have a good time on my trip, and so I don't foresee a medical problem. Also, I've been increasing the amount of time I spend on my elliptical machine, and so I feel that I am in reasonable shape for traveling.

I usually don't buy travel insurance. But twice I have, in both situations when I prepaid in full for a very expensive trip that was wholly nonrefundable. The first time we didn't need it. The second time, well, we haven't taken the trip yet. But both my husband and I have elderly parents, and it was worth the few hundred dollars for the piece of mind. I don't think I would buy it on a regular basis, though.

In 2010 our flights to Europe were cancelled due to the Icelandic volcano and our trip insurance covered our expenses. We have purchased trip insurance on other overseas trips because of aging parents but now that our parents are gone we would still buy the insurance. At this age so many health events can occur that you never know when you might need hospitalization or evacuation or even an upgrade to first class for the return trip. An insurance policy has been money well spent for us—even it just buys peace of mind.

Yes on any trip ticket over a thousand.

Yes, most of the time we buy independent travel insurance.

Yes, absolutely. My regular health insurance is Medicare (and a supplemental). Medicare does not cover you outside of the country. I also have a very elderly mother and should she get sick right before I go or fall ill while I am away, the insurance would cover the cost of the trip if I had to cancel or pay to get me home if I had to get there in a hurry. There are so many reasons to have trip insurance. I always look at either Squaremouth.com and Insuremytrip.com to find the best deal for the coverage I want. So far I have always purchased CSA. I haven't had to make a claim and hope I never do.

If you want to buy "cancel for any reason" insurance, it is much more expensive and you must purchase it within a certain number of days of making your first payment.

Lars the ER visit happened on the first day there. After all the crazy stuff I have heard about medical care in Mexico my husband had great care. I do have to mention though that I wouldn't venture there for any major operations as I witnessed a male nurse taking a bunch of some sort of tubing into a room by dragging the ends across the floor.

My husband was born with a heart defect and went into A-fib. In the states he always ended up needing to be zapped as other methods never brought him back to normal. In Mexico he was for the first time brought back to normal with some kind of med cocktail not used in the states. Anyway, he has since had major surgery and has been great.

We will still do travel insurance though as we are just in an age group where stuff could happen.

I would think that if the airline cancels a flight, you would not need insurance in order to get a refund. My hesitation is that I hate having to deal with insurance claims.

If I can pay with my CitiCard (AA Addvantage), it has very good trip insurance for whatever I purchase with the card -- airline tickets, train tickets, hotels, etc. Read the fine print on your credit card website to see if you get the same benefit. Mine covers almost everything needed.

For anything that I have to pay with cash or check that is over $1000, I buy trip insurance.

We are going to Italy this spring and bought travel insurance for the trip. Cost of trip for 2=roughly $6k, travel insurance=$600. With elderly parents, us being 60ish and kids in their 20's, you just never know what could happen. We felt it was a good investment for the god awful what if.

I did just check ours and it covers evacuation and medical coverage as well as trip cancellation,etc.

Absolutely for every trip overseas. At the very least, get medical coverage, because those bills could be way more than the trip itself. I have an annual plan with GeoBlue that has good coverage for a reasonable rate.

https://www.geobluetravelinsurance.com/products/multi-trip/trekker-5-overview.cfm

To me, trip insurance and travel insurance are two different things. Travel insurance is medical insurance for international travel, and trip insurance covers cancellation. Is this correct?

For one very expensive trip with family, with an elderly family member who was in poor health at home, we did get trip insurance. The person footing the bill for the trip was trying to feel out if we would all feel compelled to come home if the elderly person took a turn for the worse and the answer was ... yes (I think he was hoping against hope it would be no). The trip insurance was a substantial percentage of the cost of the trip.

I had to cancel a trip to Florida myself once when my grandfather died, I didn’t have trip insurance and due to circumstances (he took a long time to die because he was a very very tough man) I didn’t get a refund on the flight, but It would cost more to get trip insurance on all our flights all the time than to eat the cost of an occasional flight.

So I guess my decision making process is that if there are special circumstances that may interfere, I would be more likely to get trip insurance. But it is so expensive that I don’t think it is necessarily worth it for all travel.

That's because you're Canadian Robo. In the US most health insurance plans will cover you when you're outside the country, with notable exceptions like Medicare. So when I buy travel insurance it's to cover things like having to cancel because of my ir a family member's illness, lost luggage, an emergency flight home, and also some medical coverage not paid by my primary insurance.

We’ve never purchased travel insurance - domestic or overseas.

DD travels all over the world and never even thinks about purchasing insurance. However, when I was her age I travelled to Hawaii and New York and got deathly ill right before each departure. Since I didn't have insurance, I went on to have a miserable time, recovering just before it was time to leave for home.

If we are going somewhere that we want medical evacuation coverage, we do buy it. I have a friend whose whole family was in a horrific bus accident in Mexico years ago. They all made it (many people did not). Two of them ended up using their travel insurance for medical evacuation back to Canada.

This article on travel insurance was recently posted on Christopher Elliot's web site. It mentions several third party sites where you can compare policies. Both of the ones that dedtired recommended are also listed here.

I usually purchase insurance that includes 'cancel for any reason' and medical evacuation.

http://www.elliott.org/blog/check-sites-objective-travel-insurance-information/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+elliottorg+%28Elliott%29

We did for our trip to Europe two years ago. Never had before but the previous year my mom has gotten in a major vehicle accident the day before she was supposed to leave for Hawaii for two weeks and luckily she had travel insurance. We found our insurance through insuremytrip.com, the policy we selected covered at minimum medical, evacuation, and cancellation.

If traveling outside the country, would get at least medical evacuation insurance.

from https://www.axatravelinsurance.com/why-buy A travel insurance policy can assist you in the event the unexpected happens. Such as:

-- Days before you’re set to leave, your child catches chickenpox! If you cancel your trip entirely, will you be reimbursed for any non-refundable pre-payments and/or deposits?
-- While trekking through Thailand, you slip and fall, injuring your ankle. Do you know who can help you find an English-speaking doctor to have your ankle treated?
-- You arrived in Costa Rica, unfortunately, your luggage did not. If it’s simply delayed, who will reimburse you for your immediate necessities until you retrieve the baggage? Or worse, if the luggage was lost, will you be reimbursed for the replacement of your items?
-- An accident has occurred and you need immediate medical care, but adequate medical treatment is unavailable locally. How will you arrange a medical evacuation? Who will cover the cost?
-- You left your prescription medication on the kitchen counter at home and now need to get an emergency prescription filled abroad. Your local doctor can’t give you a new prescription if you are outside of the U.S. Who will assist you in obtaining a new prescription locally?
-- There has been a family emergency back home and you must interrupt your trip to return. Who will provide reimbursement for your unused portion of the trip?

I've been checking weather reports for the South Pacific, and it looks like we will have decent weather for our trip. That was my main concern regarding insurance. We will not be doing anything risky that I think we would need insurance for, and so I think I will forego it this time, but I will still consider it for the future.\

As for bags not arriving, since we have a non-stop flight, I don't think there is much chance that they would get lost. I try to get non-stop flights whenever possible for this reason, but that was not possible when we went to Brazil, and nothing bad happened. I had not been told about trip/travel insurance before we went, and as it turned out, we did not need it. We also had non-stop flights to Rome when we went to Italy, but I would have been concerned if we had had to change planes in Paris or London.

This information has been very helpful to me, and I will remember it for future trips.

One thing I did discover when comparing policies to buy for my latest trip is that policy coverage varies widely, and that a higher priced policy does not necessarily mean more coverage. It pays to closely read the terms and conditions, and how individual insurance companies define things like "pre-existing condition." And different insurers have different definitions of "trip delay," or reasons for which you may cancel. You may think that you are covered for something when you are actually not. Make sure it's a policy that actually insures against whatever it is you are concerned about insuring.

Travel insurance, to me, is the same as trip insurance. A good plan covers a variety of things that could go wrong before or during your trip.... delays, cancellations, health issues, etc. My credit card doesn't cover all of the same things, and my health insurance won't work in other countries except for imminent death/loss of limb.

I bought travel insurance for the first time last year when I traveled to a couple third-world countries. Unfortunately, I needed to use it to medically evacuate the country mid-trip. Filing the claim was very easy online and I was reimbursed quickly. I never even had to talk to anyone on the phone.

I have more big trips coming up w/ portions prepaid well ahead of time. I have travel insurance purchased on those, as well. If one of us ends up sick, there is a natural disaster, etc., and we have to cancel the trip, we won't be out anything except the insurance price in the end.

lolauren, which company did you purchase your insurance from?

I am another one that anything that is more than $1,000 I will buy the insurance. Just booked fares this week for $1500 for the both of us and bought it. Anything can happen, and internationally you do want the coverage. I use Allianz which is usually through American and I think Delta.

tripinsurancestore.com is another good resource. You can talk to the owner, Steve, and he’ll answer questions about which insurance is best for your circumstances. He even interceded when I thought the insurance company was dragging its feet on a claim.

https://tripinsurancestore.com/

https://www.squaremouth.com/travel-insurance-quotes

"Squaremouth helps travelers find the best travel insurance for the lowest price. Compare over 100 policies with help from our award-winning customer service team. Using Squaremouth’s comparison engine, travelers can search, compare, and buy travel insurance from every major provider in the U.S. Compare policies side-by-side and use our custom search filters to find the best policy for your trip."

https://www.insuremytrip.com

We buy travel insurance for overseas and expensive trips. We get insurance with evacuation clause - which can be very expensive if you have to be airlifted off a ship (for instance). Years ago I was on a tour in Greece where a lady broke her leg - to get her home they had to remove several rows of seats and made room for her stretcher (the leg was not set) and was met by an ambulance in Boston and transferred to a hospital. I always hoped she had very good travel insurance. We were also stuck in Budapest during the Iceland volcano - travel insurance took care of whatever the cruise line did not.

I buy travel insurance even when the cost of my trip is not high. I buy it in case something happens to me while I'm traveling, or to a family member and I have to get home quick. My medical insurance will cover me while I'm abroad, but of course at out of network prices. There are many other expenses, that you can incur while traveling if you are ill or injured. Probably the most extreme would be an air ambulance. But there are other expenses like extra days in a hotel if one of you is hospitalized. Costs of changing a ticket, etc.

I paid about $50 for comprehensive travel insurance for my 7 weeks in Guatemala, and since I bought the policy within 14 days of booking my flights it covers preexisting conditions for me or a family member. The price was low, because I didn't spend much on the tickets or pre-booked accommodation.